Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Beautiful one day, uninsurable the next?
Nick Kilvert ABC (No paywall)There’s a long history of adaptation on the Queensland coast — but our changing climate could soon make it harder to get a mortgage there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-09-06/sea-change-queens…
# Hot topic Australia, Climate change, Housing market.Australians save $60 billion a year on overseas travel, spend part of it on buying property
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Australians have saved some $60 billion a year in cancelled overseas travel because of the pandemic, figures show, with part of that cash flowing into the property market. Buyers lucky enough to keep their jobs have been taking the opportunity to use their extra savings to get into the rising property market for the first time, move to a lifestyle destination, or purchase a holiday house or investment property.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/australians-save-60-billion-a-yea…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Five tips for saving for a house deposit at a time of record-high house prices
Melissa Jenkins The New Daily (No paywall)Isn’t there a saying … never do business with friends and family? Well, one property expert believes many Australians will have no choice but to break that rule in coming years, if they have any hope of breaking into the property market.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/dollars-and-sense/2021/09/05/…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Social housing: Labor demands federal intervention after report warns of 200,000 dwelling shortfall in a decade
Finn McHugh Canberra Times (No paywall)Labor is demanding federal government intervention after a warning Australia faces a ticking timebomb on social housing. Despite predictions of a crash at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, data this month revealed low and middle income earners were being locked out of the property market by skyrocketing house prices. And a new report from Compass Housing Services has predicted Australia will face a shortfall of nearly 200,000 social housing properties by 2031, calling for "urgent and significant intervention" from the Commonwealth. The report, released on Monday, warned the states and territories were failing to keep up with demand, and only planned a combined 66,125 new dwellings over the next decade. It found that would still exclude 100,000 families on current waiting lists, a number rising to 196,000 when an expected population increase was factored in. You will find a media release from Compass Housing Services and a link to the full report at: [https://www.compasshousing.org/news]
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7408155/stark-warning-ove…
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing market.‘I tell them, it didn’t kill me’: Vaccination hub for homeless opens
Chloe Booker and Craig Butt The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Last year Jimmy Rose, a support worker for the homeless, had more than 30 COVID-19 tests to help calm the fears of rough sleepers needing to be tested for the virus. The 50-year-old, who once slept on the streets himself, is now helping encourage the City of Melbourne’s homeless people to get vaccinated at a centre opening at Melbourne Town Hall on Wednesday.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/i-tell-them-it-didn-t-k…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Homelessness.Even with the eviction moratorium, landlords continued to find ways to kick renters out
Matthew Fowle and Rachel Fyall The Conversation (No paywall)Millions of renters in the U.S. lost a key protection keeping them in their homes on Aug. 26, 2021, with a Supreme Court ruling ending a national moratorium on eviction. The federal stay on evictions was put in place during the coronavirus pandemic to protect renters falling behind on monthly payments and therefore in danger of needing to stay at homeless shelters or with friends or relatives. This pandemic response was designed to keep tenants in their housing, prevent overcrowding in shelters and homes, and reduce the spread of COVID-19. ... we studied the housing experiences of low-income renters during the coronavirus pandemic. Our research found that even when a ban on evictions was in place, landlords still had ways to force, or at least encourage, renters to leave. Indeed, these so-called “informal evictions” – in which landlords harass tenants out of their homes – may even have increased as a result of the stay on evictions.
https://theconversation.com/even-with-the-eviction-moratorium-la…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Repairs, Coronavirus COVID-19.'Absolutely neglectful’: Labor says Wilcannia COVID housing too late
Cameron Gooley The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Thirty new motorhomes will open in the far western NSW community of Wilcannia so COVID-19 positive people won’t have to isolate in overcrowded housing, a move Labor says should have happened weeks ago. The homes will be on Wilcannia’s campervan site by Monday, weeks after the town recorded its first COVID-19 case. More than 60 per cent of Wilcannia’s population is Aboriginal, considered more at risk from the virus, and concerns about the ability of people to isolate in the community’s overcrowded housing have been mounting. The announcement comes days after a leaked letter from a respected local Aboriginal health organisation raised the alarm over the “chaotic” government response to an unfolding “humanitarian crisis” in Wilcannia. ... Labor has urged the state government to prepare similar accommodation options for other remote communities, ready to be rolled out as soon as they begin to record cases. It is also urging the Coalition to invest more money in remote housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/absolutely-neglectful-labor-…
# Hot topic NSW, Aboriginal renters, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Short-term holiday letting, State Government.Social housing in New South Wales - Contempoary Analysis
Emma Barnes, Thomas Writer and Chris Hartley (No paywall)In advance of the June 2021 NSW Budget, the St Vincent de Paul Society NSW commissioned the Centre for Social Impact at the University of NSW to examine the NSW Government’s commitments to develop additional social housing. The report demonstrates that, though there are more than 51,000 applicants for social housing at present, NSW Government commitments between 2016 and 2026 amount to just 9,386 additional dwellings. It also finds that expenditure on social housing per capita in NSW declined between 2017-18 and 2019-20 and that social housing as a proportion of the total housing stock has declined from 5% in 2012 to 4.7% in 2020. (St Vincent de Paul Society) Read the full report at: [https://www.csi.edu.au/research/project/social-housing-in-new-south-wales/]
https://www.csi.edu.au/research/project/social-housing-in-new-so…
# Research alert NSW, Public and community housing, Homelessness, State Government.